Nobel Prize in Literature | Britannica.com Nobel Prize in Literature any of the prizes (five in number until 1969, when a sixth was added) that are awarded annually from a fund bequeathed for that purpose by the Swedish inventor and industrialist Alfred Bernhard Nobel.... Displaying Featured Nobel Prize in Literature Articles Ernest Hemingway American novelist and short-story writer, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. He was noted both for the intense masculinity of his writing and for his adventurous and widely publicized life. His succinct and lucid prose style exerted a powerful influence on American and British fiction in the 20th century. The first son of Clarence Edmonds... Bob Dylan American folksinger who moved from folk to rock music in the 1960s, infusing the lyrics of rock and roll, theretofore concerned mostly with boy-girl romantic innuendo, with the intellectualism of classic literature and poetry. Hailed as the Shakespeare of his generation, Dylan sold tens of millions of albums, wrote more than 500 songs recorded by more...

Sir Winston Churchill British statesman, orator, and author who as prime minister (1940–45, 1951–55) rallied the British people during World War II and led his country from the brink of defeat to victory. After a sensational rise to prominence in national politics before World War I, Churchill acquired a reputation for erratic judgment in the war itself and in the decade... Rabindranath Tagore Bengali poet, short-story writer, song composer, playwright, essayist, and painter who introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from traditional models based on classical Sanskrit. He was highly influential in introducing Indian culture to the West and vice versa, and he is... Rudyard Kipling English short-story writer, poet, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, his tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. Life Kipling’s father, John Lockwood Kipling, was an artist and scholar who had considerable influence on his...

Albert Camus French novelist, essayist, and playwright, best known for such novels as L’Étranger (1942; The Stranger), La Peste (1947; The Plague), and La Chute (1956; The Fall) and for his work in leftist causes. He received the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature. Early years Less than a year after Camus was born, his father, an impoverished worker, was killed in... Bertrand Russell British philosopher, logician, and social reformer, founding figure in the analytic movement in Anglo-American philosophy, and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. Russell’s contributions to logic, epistemology, and the philosophy of mathematics established him as one of the foremost philosophers of the 20th century. To the general... T.S. Eliot American-English poet, playwright, literary critic, and editor, a leader of the modernist movement in poetry in such works as The Waste Land (1922) and Four Quartets (1943). Eliot exercised a strong influence on Anglo-American culture from the 1920s until late in the century.

His experiments in diction, style, and versification revitalized English... John Steinbeck American novelist, best known for The Grapes of Wrath (1939), which summed up the bitterness of the Great Depression decade and aroused widespread sympathy for the plight of migratory farmworkers. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature for 1962. Steinbeck attended Stanford University, Stanford, Calif., intermittently between 1920 and 1926 but did... Jean-Paul Sartre French novelist, playwright, and exponent of Existentialism —a philosophy acclaiming the freedom of the individual human being. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964, but he declined it. Early life and writings Sartre lost his father at an early age and grew up in the home of his maternal grandfather, Carl Schweitzer, uncle of the medical... George Bernard Shaw Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, and socialist propagandist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. Shaw’s article on socialism appeared in the 13th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Early life and career George Bernard Shaw was the third and youngest child (and only son) of George Carr Shaw and Lucinda Elizabeth Gurly Shaw.... William Faulkner American novelist and short-story writer who was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature. Youth and early writings As the eldest of the four sons of Murry Cuthbert and Maud Butler Falkner, William Faulkner (as he later spelled his name) was well aware of his family background and especially of his great-grandfather, Colonel William Clark Falkner,... Gabriel García Márquez Colombian novelist and one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 (see Nobel Lecture: “The Solitude of Latin America”), mostly for his masterpiece Cien años de soledad (1967; One Hundred Years of Solitude). He was the fourth Latin American to be so honoured, having been preceded by Chilean... Samuel Beckett author, critic, and playwright, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.

He wrote in both French and English and is perhaps best known for his plays, especially En attendant Godot (1952; Waiting for Godot). Life Samuel Beckett was born in a suburb of Dublin. Like his fellow Irish writers George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, and William Butler... Toni Morrison American writer noted for her examination of black experience (particularly black female experience) within the black community. She received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. Morrison grew up in the American Midwest in a family that possessed an intense love of and appreciation for black culture. Storytelling, songs, and folktales were a deeply... William Butler Yeats Irish poet, dramatist, and prose writer, one of the greatest English-language poets of the 20th century. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. Yeats’s father, John Butler Yeats, was a barrister who eventually became a portrait painter. His mother, formerly Susan Pollexfen, was the daughter of a prosperous merchant in Sligo, in western... Pablo Neruda Chilean poet, diplomat, and politician who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.

He was perhaps the most important Latin American poet of the 20th century. Early life and love poetry Neruda was the son of José del Carmen Reyes, a railway worker, and Rosa Basoalto. His mother died within a month of Neruda’s birth, and two years later the... Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn Russian novelist and historian, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970. Solzhenitsyn was born into a family of Cossack intellectuals and brought up primarily by his mother (his father was killed in an accident before his birth). He attended the University of Rostov-na-Donu, graduating in mathematics, and took correspondence courses... Upton Sinclair American novelist and polemicist for socialism and other causes; his The Jungle is a landmark among naturalistic, proletarian novels. Sinclair graduated from the College of the City of New York in 1897 and did graduate work at Columbia University, supporting himself by journalistic writing. The Jungle (1906), his sixth novel and first popular success,...

Hermann Hesse German novelist, poet, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, whose main theme deals with man’s breaking out of the established modes of civilization to find his essential spirit. With his appeal for self-realization and his celebration of Eastern mysticism, Hesse posthumously became a cult figure to young people in the English-speaking... Eugene O’Neill foremost American dramatist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936. His masterpiece, Long Day’s Journey into Night (produced posthumously 1956), is at the apex of a long string of great plays, including Beyond the Horizon (1920), Anna Christie (1922), Strange Interlude (1928), Ah! Wilderness (1933), and The Iceman Cometh (1946). Early... Svetlana Alexievich Belarusian journalist and prose writer, a Russian-language author of meticulously crafted works of depth and introspection that provided a compelling and uncompromising portrayal of the social and political upheaval within the Soviet Union from the postwar era to the fall of communism.

She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015. One of a minority... Thomas Mann German novelist and essayist whose early novels— Buddenbrooks (1900), Der Tod in Venedig (1912; Death in Venice), and Der Zauberberg (1924; The Magic Mountain)—earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. Early literary endeavours Mann’s father died in 1891, and Mann moved to Munich, a centre of art and literature, where he lived until 1933.... Seamus Heaney Irish poet whose work is notable for its evocation of Irish rural life and events in Irish history as well as for its allusions to Irish myth. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995. After graduating from Queen’s University, Belfast (B.A., 1961), Heaney taught secondary school for a year and then lectured in colleges and universities in... Doris Lessing British writer whose novels and short stories are largely concerned with people involved in the social and political upheavals of the 20th century. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007.

Her family was living in Persia at the time of her birth but moved to a farm in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where she lived from age five until... Sir William Golding English novelist who in 1983 won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his parables of the human condition. He attracted a cult of followers, especially among the youth of the post-World War II generation. Educated at Marlborough Grammar School, where his father taught, and at Brasenose College, Oxford, Golding graduated in 1935. After working in a settlement... Saul Bellow American novelist whose characterizations of modern urban man, disaffected by society but not destroyed in spirit, earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. Brought up in a Jewish household and fluent in Yiddish—which influenced his energetic English style—he was representative of the Jewish American writers whose works became central to American... Alice Munro Canadian short-story writer who gained international recognition with her exquisitely drawn narratives. The Swedish Academy dubbed her a “master of the contemporary short story ” when it awarded her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013.

Munro’s work was noted for its precise imagery and narrative style, which is at once lyrical, compelling, economical,... Mario Vargas Llosa Peruvian writer whose commitment to social change is evident in his novels, plays, and essays. In 1990 he was an unsuccessful candidate for president of Peru. Vargas Llosa was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.” Vargas Llosa... Harold Pinter English playwright, who achieved international renown as one of the most complex and challenging post-World War II dramatists. His plays are noted for their use of understatement, small talk, reticence—and even silence—to convey the substance of a character’s thought, which often lies several layers beneath, and contradicts, his speech. In 2005 he... Bellow Wins 1976 Nobel Prize | Jewish Telegraphic Agency Bellow Wins 1976 Nobel Prize October 22, 1976 STOCKHOLM (Oct.

21) The 1976 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded here yesterday to Saul Bellow, the American novelist and academician whose large body of work epitomizes the experience of the Jewish intellectual in America in this century. He lost out winning the Nobel Prize in October 1975 despite indications that he was a front-runner for the award. Born in Montreal, Canada, 61 years ago as Solomon Bellows, son of Jewish immigrant parents from Russia, he changed his name when he started publishing his works in the 1940s. He has been a professor of literature at the University of Chicago since 1962 and also taught at the University of Minnesota and at Princeton University. Bellow won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his latest novel “Humboldt’s Gift,” published last year. He has received the U.S. National Book Award three times, the French Prix International de Literature in 1965, and the Jewish Heritage Award in 1968. His latest book, “To Jerusalem and Back,” published this year, is a non-fiction personal account of his impressions of Israel, a country he has visited on a number of occasions.

Two of his books, “Herzog,” published in 1964 and “Mr. Sammler’s Planet,” which won him the National Book Award in 1971, have been translated into Hebrew and were enthusiastically received by Israeli critics and public. THIRD JEW TO WIN THIS YEAR Bellow is the first American to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature since it was awarded to John Steinbeck in 1962. The Swedish Academy’s announcement yesterday gave Americans a clean sweep of the Nobel Prizes awarded for this year. The prize for literature amounts to about $162,000. Two other American Jews won or shared this year’s Nobel Prizes in other fields–Dr. Milton Friedman in economics and Dr. Baruch Blumberg in medicine. Bellow spent his childhood in the poor section of Montreal where his father, who had been a vegetable merchant in St. Petersburg, supported his family by collecting wood scraps from lumber mills. Later he became a coal dealer. The family moved to Chicago when Bellow was nine. He attended Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin where he earned a degree in anthropology and sociology in 1937.

Bellow wrote for a number of American newspapers and magazines. His first novel, “Dangling Man,” published in 1944, was the story of a young Jewish radical seeking meaning in American life. His first major success as a novelist came with publication in 1953 of “The Adventures of Augie March,” whose protagonist was a young Jew who grew up on the sidewalks of Chicago. The novel “Herzog,” published in 1964, is regarded as Bellow’s greatest success. As in his previous novels, the major character was a Jew, a professor and would-be writer involved in an unhappy marriage. “Humboldt’s Gift” continues in the same vein, depicting the Jew as an anti-hero buffeted by circumstances he cannot control. American Nobel Laureates in Literature | Tomas Tranströmer American Nobel Laureates in Literature 1930 – Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American writer.

Received the 1930 Nobel Prize for Literature “for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of characters.” XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 1936 – Eugene Gladstone O’Neill (1888-1953) American writer. Eugene O’Neill won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936, and Pulitzer Prizes for four of his plays: Beyond the Horizon (1920); Anna Christie (1922); Strange Interlude (1928); and Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1957). He won the Nobel Prize in Literature “for the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept of tragedy.” XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 1938 – Pearl Buck (1892-1973) American writer. Buck was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia. She grew up in China, where her parents were missionaries in Huai’an and Zhenjiang, but she later was educated at Cornell University and Randolph-Macon Woman’s College.

Buck was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize “for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces”. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 1948 – Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) British/American writer. T.S. Eliot received the 1948 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry.” XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 1949 – William Faulkner (1897-1962) American writer. Received the 1949 Nobel in Literature “for his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel.” XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 1954 – Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899-1961) American writer. Brevity was his specialty.

Received the 1954 Nobel in Literature “for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style.” XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 1962 – John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer. Received the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception.” XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 1976 – Saul Bellow (1915-2005) American writer. Received the 1976 Nobel Prize for Literature “for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work.” XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 1978 – Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) Polish/American writer.

Received the 1978 Nobel Prize for Literature “for his impassioned narrative art which, with roots in a Polish-Jewish cultural tradition, brings universal human conditions to life.” XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 1980 – Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) Polish/American writer. Received the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature for voicing “man’s exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts.” XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 1987 – Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996) Russian/American writer. Received the 1987 Nobel Prize for Literature “for an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity.” XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 1992 – Derek Walcott (1930- ) Saint Lucian/American writer.

Derek Walcott received the 1992 Nobel Prize for Literature “for a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment.” XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 1993 – Toni Morrison (1931- ) American writer. Received the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature for “novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import,” giving “life to an essential aspect of American reality.” 2016 – Bob Dylan (1941 – ) American musician and songwriter. The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 was awarded to Bob Dylan “who can be read and should be read, and is a great poet in the English tradition for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. Share this: BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Nobel Prize novelist Bellow dies Nobel Prize novelist Bellow dies Bellow won the Nobel Prize in 1976 Novelist Saul Bellow, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976, has died in Massachusetts, aged 89.

He was brought up in Chicago, and much of his work deals with that city and the experience of Jews and immigrants in 20th Century America. Bellow's novels included Seize The Day, Henderson The Rain King, Herzog, Mr Sammler's Planet and Humboldt's Gift. His friend Walter Pozen said the writer had been in declining health, but was "wonderfully sharp to the end". Bellow's wife and daughter were at his side when he died at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, Mr Pozen told the Associated Press news agency. 'Working stiffs' He was born Solomon Bellows near Montreal in 1915, the son of Russian immigrants, who moved to Chicago when he was nine. He learned Hebrew at an early age, and his mother wanted him to be a Talmudic scholar, but he was always attracted to writing. He grew up in the Depression of the 1930s, but said that he found something energising in the determination shown by people around him. "There were people going to libraries and reading books," he said in a 1997 AP interview.

The author learned Hebrew at an early age "They were going to libraries because they were trying to keep warm; they had no heat in their houses. "There was a great deal of mental energy in those days, of very appealing sorts. Working stiffs were having ideas." Giant His first novel, Dangling Man, was published in 1944, and dealt with a young man's dilemma about whether to sign up for military service in World War II. He made his name with The Adventures of Augie March in 1953, followed by Henderson the Rain King and Herzog. In 1975, Humboldt's Gift won him a Pulitzer prize and paved the way for his Nobel award the following year. Fellow novelist Philip Roth paid tribute to Bellow, saying he was one of two giants of the modern American fiction. "The backbone of 20th Century American literature has been provided by two novelists - William Faulkner and Saul Bellow," Mr Roth said. "Together they are the Melville, Hawthorne, and Twain of the 20th Century." But Bellow himself was more cautious.

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Bellow described the modern novel as a "latter-day lean-to, a hovel in which the spirit takes shelter". He added: "It is the best we can do just now." Bellow was married five times, and fathered a daughter at the age of 84. A private funeral is planned, as well as a public memorial. Here are some of your tributes to Nobel Prize-winning author Saul Bellow. Saul Bellow has had a tremendous influence, not only on literature, but on social criticism in general. His chairmanship of the Committee on Social Thought is still remembered fondly here at the University of Chicago. He was truly a giant among thinkers. Daniel Worthen, Chicago, Illinois, United States [I] was first introduced to Bellow at University as part of an American Literature course. Have to say - what a literary giant. I've since gone on to read as much of his work as possible and am always amazed how each novel brings something different to your attention and captures the era in astounding detail.

Alex A, Manchester, UK I grew up reading Saul Bellow in the 1980s and Adventures of Augie March is one of the most finely crafted novels of the 21st Century. If Milan Kundera dies this year as well - that is the end of serious literature as we know it. Roy Abraham, Rruro, United Kingdom I've read most of Saul Bellow's novels. What I like best are some of his shorter ones such as Seize the Day and Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories. Essentially, Bellow is a novelist of ideas. Marina Poon, Nottingham, UK Mr Bellow's writing was a "tour de force" of creativity. A true literary genius; I admired his work immensely and will treasure his memory. Thomas Pastor, Las Vegas I remember an interview with Bellow regarding Herzog. He said he got a lot of fan mail saying they related to Herzog and his rich but fragile inner life (as I did myself). Bellow replied to these letters something along the lines of "Herzog was meant to be pitied, not revered.

He is meant to demonstrate the tragedy of living an inward life." Chris Haddon, Vancouver, Canada I read my first book by Saul Bellow, Herzog, just this year. When I finished it I called all my friends and said, "You have to read this." I made a plan to meet Mr Bellow before he passed away so I could kiss his cheek. How sad to grieve an era of reading and writing departed with Mr Bellow. Joshua Hardina, Riverside, CA, US The Nobel Prize in Literature 1976 The Nobel Prize in Literature 1976 Saul Bellow The Nobel Prize in Literature 1976 Saul Bellow Prize share: 1/1 The Nobel Prize in Literature 1976 was awarded to Saul Bellow "for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work". Photos: Copyright © The Nobel Foundation Share this: To cite this page MLA style: "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1976". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 5 Jan 2017.

< 8 Writing Tips from Authors who Won the Nobel | Now Novel Return to Content 8 writing tips from authors who won the Nobel Writing tips from authors who won the Nobel (such as Toni Morrison and Gabriel Garcia Marquez) are often worth taking to heart. Read 8 of the best pieces of writing advice from acclaimed authors: 1. Don’t use dead language Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. In her Nobel lecture, Morrison contrasts ‘dead language’ that ‘thwarts the intellect, stalls conscience, suppresses human potential’ with language that is used with awareness and care. She classes sexist and racist language as the former, saying that they are ‘the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas.’ Morrison’s words from later in her same speech give us guidance for how not to use dead language in our own writing : ‘Language can never live up to life once and for all. Nor should it. Language can never “pin down” slavery, genocide, war. Nor should it yearn for the arrogance to be able to do so.

Its force, its felicity is in its reach toward the ineffable.’ What Morrison suggests here is that it is best to approach grand subjects without trying to make the definitive statement, without trying to say ‘everything’. Tell the one true story that matters to you. A story that explores the themes and ideas that matter to you. This leads to excellent writing advice from another Nobel-winning writer, this time the Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska: 2. Use concrete imagery when you write about large, abstract themes The Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska, who won the Nobel for literature in 1996, ran a column giving advice to writers in the Polish newspaper Literary Life. In one great piece of writing advice , Szymborska told an aspiring poet the following (her advice applies to fiction authors too): ‘You’ve managed to squeeze more lofty words into three short poems than most poets manage in a lifetime: ‘Fatherland,’ ‘truth,’ ‘freedom,’ ‘justice’: such words don’t come cheap. Real blood flows in them, which can’t be counterfeited with ink.’ This ties into Morrison’s writing advice. When writing tips from authors who are widely respected overlap, it merits taking especial notice.

Grand or historical themes are best conveyed and made into stories by using what is concrete and particular. Instead of describing a character who ‘loves freedom’, for example, describe a character’s actions and experiences that demonstrate this love of freedom. This gives readers a more visual and empathetic reading experience. 3. Work stories out in your head when you can’t write The Canadian author Alice Munro, who was given the Nobel for Literature in 2013, has dedicated her writing life almost exclusively to the short story. When asked whether she always plots a story first , Munro says: ‘Usually, I have a lot of acquaintance with the story before I start writing it. When I didn’t have regular time to give to writing, stories would just be working in my head for so long that when I started to write I was deep into them.’ To add to this, you could keep a voice recorder or use the voice note function on a smartphone to record ideas or sentences for your novel as they occur to you. This will help you keep creating even when you have fewer moments to sit down and write. 4.

Read and draw on wide influences but don’t cram your work with others’ ideas The Nigerian playwright and poet Wole Soyinka, who won the Nobel for Literature in 1986, describes his reading habits and how reading influenced his writing in an interview: ‘I’ve read widely in the world’s literature, European, Asiatic, American … In other words, I cannot cut off and will not attempt to cut off what is my experience and what is after all, the world’s experience. There is a great deal of intercommunication in the world. A lot of people tend to forget that. As long as I find the means of expression, a form of communication which does not alienate my immediate readership and I do not deliberately cram my work with foreign references to a point where the work is indigestible — these are faults which should never be permitted by any serious writer.’ It’s true that to write well you need to read widely. And reading diverse books will enrich your own writing. But be selective about what references you consciously include because your novel should ultimately be your own story rather than a patchwork of transparent influences. 5.

Make people believe in your story first and foremost The Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. The celebrated author of novels such as Cien años de soledad (translated as A Hundred Years of Solitude) was also a journalist. When asked about the difference between journalism and writing fiction , Marquez answered thus: ‘In journalism just one fact that is false prejudices the entire work. In contrast, in fiction one single fact that is true gives legitimacy to the entire work. That’s the only difference, and it lies in the commitment of the writer. A novelist can do anything he wants so long as he makes people believe in it.’ This last sentence is key: It doesn’t matter if you write realist fiction set in contemporary London or futuristic sci-fi set in a Mars colony. Create believable characters who have credible motivations and flaws , immersive settings and realistic tensions and conflicts and your fiction will feel believable. 6. Don’t focus on the end goal excessively as you write Of all the writing tips from authors, the advice John Steinbeck gave remains some of the best.

In the Fall 1975 issue of The Paris Review ( excerpted by The Atlantic here ), Steinbeck writes: ‘Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.’ It’s easy to feel either impatient or overwhelmed if you focus only on when your novel will be finished. Focus on the task at hand instead. Write just one page today: it’s one more page than you had yesterday. Then write another page tomorrow (continue this approach and your daily page count will likely increase as you gain momentum). 7. Make sure you write regularly and inspiration will come The Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, who published over 30 novels, plays and essays, received the Nobel in 2010. In an interview with the Paris Review , Vargas gives advice on how to keep coming up with writing ideas: ‘If I started to wait for moments of inspiration, I would never finish a book. Inspiration for me comes from a regular effort.’ Keep a writing schedule and be as disciplined as you can about keeping your writing appointments with yourself.

This will help ensure a steady stream of story ideas. 8. Write to connect The great Canadian-American author Saul Bellow, who published 14 novels and novellas and won the Nobel for writing in 1976, beautifully described the intimacy between the writer and the reader: ‘When you open a novel — and I mean of course the real thing — you enter into a state of intimacy with its writer. You hear a voice or, more significantly, an individual tone under the words … It is more musical than verbal, and it is the characteristic signature of a person, of a soul. Such a writer has power over distraction and fragmentation, and out of distressing unrest, even from the edge of chaos, he [or she] can bring unity and carry us into a state of intransitive attention. People hunger for this.’ Reviews Award Brings U.S. a Sweep of Honors Special to The New York Times TOCKHOLM, Oct. 21--Saul Bellow won the Nobel Prize for Literature today, giving Americans a clean sweep of all five Nobel Prizes awarded this year. No Peace Prize was given.

Even so, this was the first time in the 76 years in which the awards have been made that all recipients have been citizens of the same country. Mr. Bellow is the first American to win the prize for literature since John Steinbeck, in 1962. Mr. Bellow was cited, in the words of the Swedish Academy, �for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work.� The Year�s Clear Favorite The Canadian-born novelist, who grew up in Chicago and now lives there, has been mentioned in past years as a leading candidate for the award. He was the clear favorite this year. Yesterday, in a rare gesture obviously inspired by information from the academy, a Swedish newspaper predicted that he would win the $160,000 prize, even though the academy did not take its formal vote until this morning. In a statement accompanying the two-line citation, the academy said that Mr. Bellow�s style had gone through two distinct stages, the first representing an �emancipation� of American writing from the �hard-boiled� but increasingly �routine� style of the 1930�s, the second representing Mr. Bellow�s improvement on himself.

In �Dangling Man,� published in 1944, �The Victim,� 1947, and �Seize the Day,� 1956, Mr. Bellow re-focused American literature on the ordinary, inner agonies and joys of the central characters in his novels. �The anti-hero of the present was already on the way,� the academy said, �and Bellow became one of those who took care of him.� In his second stage, the academy said, Mr. Bellow added to his gifts for introspection a new set of weapons: �Exuberant ideas, flashing irony, hilarious comedy and burning compassion.� The result--in �The Adventures of Augie March,� �Henderson the Rain King,� �Herzog,� �Mr. Sammler�s Planet� and �Humboldt�s Gift� -- was, in the academy�s words, �something quite new.� This, it said, was Mr.

Bellow�s own mixture of �rich picaresque novel and subtle analysis of our culture, of entertaining adventure, drastic and tragic episodes in quick succession, interspersed with philosophic conversation with the reader.� The academy singled out �Henderson the Rain King� as �the writer�s most imaginative expedition.� It went on to say that that book showed as did most of Mr. Bellow�s works a fascination with a variety of settings--in the case of �Henderson,� the jungles of Africa-- as well as a continuing, lively interest in his most identifiable subject, the �man with no foothold.� Yet the academy stressed that what had given the Bellow �anti-heroes� their �lasting stature� had been their courage, the courage of a man �who keeps on trying to find a foothold during his wanderings in our tottering world, one who can never relinquish his faith that the value of life depends on its dignity, not its success.� Sinclair Lewis Was the First The 61-year-old Mr.

Bellow is the sixth American to win the prize for literature, following Steinbeck in 1962, Ernest Hemingway in 1954, William Faulkner in 1949, Pearl Buck in 1938, Eugene O�Neill in 1936 and Sinclair Lewis in 1930. There were seven Nobel laureates this year, a relatively low number compared with recent years when some of the science awards have been shared by as many as three winners each. The six other American winners this year were Prof. Burton Richter of Stanford University and Prof. Samuel C.C. Ting of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who shared the physics prize for the discovery of a new type of elementary particle; Prof. William N. Lipscomb of Harvard, who won the chemistry award for his studies of compounds known as boranes; Prof. Milton Friedman of the University of Chicago, who won the economics prize, and Dr. Baruch Blumberg of the University of Pennsylvania medical school and Dr. Carleton Gajdusek of the National Institute of Neurological Diseases at Bethesda, Md., who shared the award for medicine.

A Laureate Blinks in the Limelight CHICAGO, Oct. 21 (UPI)--Saul Bellow, his eyes glistening, spoke of his fears and humility today at winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. �A primitive part of me,� Mr. Bellow said at a news conference, �the child in me is delighted. The adult in me is skeptical.� The writer, wearing a light green turtleneck shirt and a dark green suit, said he hoped the award would not be a burden, as it was to John Steinbeck, who died in 1968. �I knew Steinbeck quite well,� he said, �and I remember how burdened he was by the Nobel Prize. He felt that he had to give a better account of himself than he had done.� On the Price of Fame Mr. Bellow, who met the press at the University of Chicago, where he is a Professor of English, said he had a real fear of becoming a celebrity. �Being a writer is a rather dreamy thing,� he said. �And nobody likes to have the diaphanous tissues torn.

One has to protect one�s dream space.� He was told that President Ford had said that the sweep of Nobel awards this year by Americans showed that the United States was a great intellectual haven. �Somebody,� he said, �must have told President Ford that because I don�t think he would have discerned it for himself.� Asked what he would do with his $160,000 prize money, Mr. Bellow said: �I don�t have any plans for the money. At this rate--considering the publicity and attention--my heirs will get the money in a day or two.� A few minutes later Chicago�s most distinguished author put on a battered fedora, adjusted a black leather topcoat and walked out into the cold, perhaps to look for some quiet dream space.

Question: Which Canadian/American novelist won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976?
Answer: SAUL BELLOW